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Saturday, September 1, 2012

I started straight off with the floor lamp thinking it was going to somewhat easy but I was so wrong! Tiny little pieces and cutting out smaller pieces to size. Gluing was a nightmare because the pieces were so tiny. But I did pull it off in the end. I also used a few extra pieces to make a little desk lamp which I will probably put in the bamboo room even if there is no light on the inside. I have it in the foyer for now...it is cute there too.

Very small pieces....

...placement with tweezers then painted and varnished...

...glueing the supports to the paper.

Finished lantern. Can't even fit a LED inside it's so small.

Extra pieces and paper. You can see the kanji only when it's lit.

I then attached the sliding windows. I glued and painted them then when I went to install them, I realised I had attached the upper sill with glue instead of double sided tape!! It was not supposed to be installed permanently. I nearly broke the wood trying to pry it off. I had to touch up the paint on the outside since it got all scraped up during the attempt to pull of the piece. In the end, I got the windows in (fitting one side by sanding down the previously glued area) and then just fitting the back piece. I was so relieved I managed to get that piece off !!

Glueing the windows that then had to be stained.

1/4" double sided tape made quick work of attaching the window panes.

Placing the windows - view from inside.

Outside view. You can see where I damaged the paint job a bit above the windows.

The last part of this chapter was the roof to the bamboo room. As usual, the ceiling piece was warped and I had to try lots of different methods to remove the bow. I got most of it out but it was a few days between wetting the wood, clamping it down etc. Attaching the front wooden piece took some creative clamping too. Then I just measured off the spaces and glued in the “beams” across the ceiling. It was only half way because the tokonoma uses up part of the room.

Wetting the board and clamping it over a dowl to dry overnite.

Glueing the front wood section. I had to clamp a smaller piece of wood to force the bow to glue onto the section.

Measuring out the pencil line - just deocration.

Glueing on the "beams" that run across the ceiling.

Finished ceiling for the bamboo room.

At this point, I have been checking the upcoming chapters and they have me jumping around a bit. I’d really like to complete the porch areas and attach them since I am afraid to leave them around unattached in my attic room - I know I’m eventually going to knock them on the floor or something. So, I will be splitting chapters up into parts since some chapters cover completing parts of the porch and others continue into other sections of the build. We shall see how this kit shapes up in the end.